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Culture of silence hurting youth hockey, parents say

A culture of secrecy in youth hockey is keeping important – and potentially life-altering – problems from being confronted, some parents allege.

In a recent case, the parents of a 13-year-old hockey player in Waterloo claim they were met with highly charged accusations from minor hockey officials after raising concerns about activity in the locker room of their son's team a year and a half ago.

The boy was ultimately forced out of hockey altogether, his parents claim, and it was only last week that the Ontario Hockey Federation began an investigation.

The parents reported that their son was getting squeamish about an assistant coach allegedly staring at him in the showers last season.

"The attention (the assistant coach) was paying to our son wasn't right," said the boy's father, whose name is being withheld to protect the identity of his son. "Our son wasn't showering anymore. That's how uncomfortable he was. But instead of investigating, they called us whistleblowers and made our lives hell."

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Jeff Brick, coach of the team, said he investigated the allegations and found no merit to them.

"This was the worst experience I've had in hockey," said the 30-year junior- and minor-level coach who is not with the team this year. "It snowballed out of control. The allegations were totally unfounded."

Officials with the Waterloo Minor Hockey Association did not respond to telephone and email requests for an interview.

The Waterloo parents are not alone in their frustration in trying to ensure their children are protected without removing them from the game.

"Something needs to be in place for families to be heard," said the father of a 12-year-old featured in the Saturday Star.

The boy and his parents allege coaches on his Mississauga Hornets team banished him and a teammate from the locker room last month, forcing them to change in a public hallway, and allowed naked photos of him to be taken and mockingly altered by another teammate.

They say their complaints to the club and the league were met with siege-mentality silence until they brought them to the Star. The Greater Toronto Hockey League has since hired a former Toronto homicide officer to investigate.

GTHL executive director Scott Oakman would only confirm that an independent fact-finder has been hired to investigate the complaint.

"While the investigation is underway, it would be inappropriate to make any further comment," he said in an email.

The Hornets and the investigator, Michael Davis, declined comment.

On Saturday, Davis interviewed the boy for more than three hours, said his father. A confidential report is expected within 60 days.

Linda Perlis, a Toronto social worker with a background in children's law who sat in on the interview at the family's request, said the secrecy surrounding the GTHL investigation "raises concerns."

"Protracted investigations which are conducted at arm's length from the child ... and in which reports are given confidentially only to a select few, can be perceived to be in the best interests of those who are being investigated and certainly don't make for a child- or victim-friendly process," she wrote in an email. "If the GTHL had any interest in weeding out and exposing internal problems, if any are found to exist, it is only in their own interest to be open and clean in the outcome."

The boy's father, who is meeting with a provincial crown attorney to discuss his family's allegations, says minor hockey needs an ombudsman to gather and investigate parental and player concerns.

"When you have a problem, there needs to be a one-stop place to go," he said. "Now, you call the team and if they don't deal with it you call the league and they pass it back to the team. If it wasn't for the Star, no one would have dealt with this."

The Waterloo family said they've been struggling to get their concerns heard since the fall of 2008.

"If you ignore this kind of behaviour, it could end up like Theoren Fleury," said the boy's mother, referring to the former NHL player who alleged he was sexually abused by a former coach. "We wanted it looked into and it should be okay for parents to stand up and say this isn't right."

In a letter to Hockey Canada in December, they alleged the boy was "alienated by his teammates, and suffered at the hands of the coaches."

It wasn't until Friday that the family received an email from the Ontario Hockey Federation saying their concerns warranted an investigation. That investigation has now begun, said OHF executive director Phil McKee.

"It could have been dealt with quicker. It got missed a bit because we had other formal complaints that we had to deal with," McKee said. "We're still trying to figure out what occurred and what went on. There are a lot of allegations in that email that are very serious in nature."

Among the family's allegations are that an assistant coach was alone in the changing rooms with the boys where he watched them undress, and that two members of the coaching staff made inappropriate and aggressive calls to their home early in the morning and late at night.

Brick, the team's coach, admitted his assistant coach was left alone in the dressing room with the boys during a tournament last season.

"In terms of protocols, it isn't how you should do things and we made the adjustment and never had one coach in the dressing room."

Brick said his assistant coach did call the boy about his ice time and that he himself called the family several times to "try and line up meetings or address concerns and get resolutions."

When the family first raised their concerns in the 2008-09 season, they say they were accused of calling the coach a pedophile.

They deny ever using any such label against the coach.

In November 2008, the team suspended the parents from games and team events for seven weeks.

The suspension notice listed inappropriate behaviour by the parents, including "degrading, offensive or malicious comments, name calling, criticism and ridicule, rages, power and control games."

The parents dismiss the allegations. They appealed that suspension due to "lack of due process," but the ruling was upheld.

Their complaint ultimately led to repercussions against their son, they allege. He was "singled out" by the coaching staff and benched for all but three of the team's last 18 games last season, accused of having a poor work ethic and being "uncoachable," they say.

Brick denies the allegation, saying he supported the boy throughout.

"It didn't impact his ice time. It did impact his play. It was a very difficult for (him) with his parents being suspended."

The teen has since quit hockey and suffers from tension headaches, the parents say.

The family's run-in with minor hockey officials also prompted the boy's brother, a year younger, to quit the game.

"He witnessed a lot and he really didn't want to play hockey anymore," said his mother. "From a family that grew up playing the game, we loved hockey. But they've both turned their back on hockey. And they can't return under this situation. We'd have to move."

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